A Leicestershire flooring firm has stepped up to help a table-topping junior football team and in the process given them a unique Wembley connection.
Seats from Wembley Stadium have been installed at Selby Town FC after the club’s under-10 side won the regional Premier League at their first attempt this year. The nine and 10-year-olds closed the season by beating Mansfield Town juniors 4-3 to win the Yorkshire Premier League.
In celebration, Nick Megson, owner and managing director of Abacus Flooring Solutions, rewarded the football club with its own piece of Wembley as well as installing brand new resin flooring in the changing rooms.
The gifted Wembley seats, which Nick had recovered from Wembley’s Royal Box while installing a new resin flooring there, have now been installed in the home team's refurbished dugout.
Abacus’s unique flooring, the first of its kind in the world, contains recycled plastic – in this case from Wembley’s old seats – but Nick retained a few whole seats for sentimental reasons.
Having been born and bred in Selby, Nick felt that the achievement of the town’s under-10 football stars deserved a pair of those seats.
Nick, who moved to Leicestershire seven years ago, where his firm operates from premises in Coalville, near Loughborough, said: “You can take the boy out of Yorkshire, but you can never take Yorkshire out of the boy. I’ve always had a soft spot for Selby.
“That group of young lads in Selby Town’s under-10 side has been magnificent. They are definitely the first-team stars of the future.
“I could think of nothing better to do with my spare Wembley seats than to present them to the club so the lads could enjoy taking selfies on them, and even use them as encouragement to one day play at Wembley themselves.”
It is not the first time that Nick has supported his hometown club.
While installing a resin flooring last year for Marshalls, a concrete pipe manufacturer in nearby Pollington, one of Nick’s long-term contacts, Ross Colby, who also coaches football at Selby Town, informed Nick that the current under-10 side were celebrating after being promoted to the Premier League last season.
Impressed by their achievement, which saw the team now playing in the same league as the likes of Mansfield Town and York City juniors, Nick donated cash for them to buy new footballs.
After subsequently winning the league at their first attempt, Nick was keen to present them with a more permanent reminder of their success.
The under-10s team has since gone on to win the regional title and narrowly missed reaching the final stage of the national tournament after losing out to Oxford City juniors. The youngsters nevertheless got to meet Rio Ferdinand, whose London Academy team won the overall tournament.
Glen Dennis, head coach of Selby Town’s under-10s, said: “We are so grateful to Nick for supporting this small town and its football club. Every donation and every bit of support goes a long way towards our hope of creating a club facility here at Selby Town that Yorkshire can be proud of.
“It’s a long time since any of our teams has experienced the kind of success that the current under-10s have achieved. We haven’t seen this level of excitement since David Beckham and Paul Scholes played here in Manchester United’s reserve team in 1999.
“The Wembley seats are pretty cool and, who knows, they may inspire our youngsters to follow in the footsteps of Scholes and Beckham.”